Historically most luminaires comprise conventional light sources such as light bulbs. However, nowadays many conventional light bulbs have been replaced with light emitting diodes (LED) modules in order to decrease energy consumption and environmental impact. The cost for a large luminaire, used in e.g. office and industry settings, with LED light sources becomes significant partly due to the cost of printed circuit boards (PCBs). State of the art provides means for decreasing the cost of large LED luminaires by e.g. using low cost PCB materials such as CEM1 or using large PCBs to decrease the number of PCBs required in a luminaire, in turn reducing the amount of cables and connections between the PCBs. However, using large PCBs is also a cost driver.
In other PCB applications, there are examples of how a PCB panel can be efficiently utilized for creating a plurality of PCBs. One example, as shown in DE19712879, is to design a PCB with apertures, where the apertures can be used for another PCB.
However, when it comes to luminaires, the light distribution is important, which is usually not a parameter to consider in other technologies. Accordingly, this complicates designing the PCB for such a luminaire. Thus, it is desirable to decrease costs for PCBs in luminaires that are able to provide a uniform light distribution.